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[llafriel]

Some years back I built two DIY Aleph 5 monoblocks. I enjoyed building them, and listening to them even more. I've always used them connected directly to my htpc. Having remote controlled my htpc using keyboard/mouse/pda/normal remote, I always missed having some sort of control over my amps(being a lazy guy of course.) What I originally planned to add was a 12V trigger for power on/off, but this never came to be.

The other day I was browsing a electronics store on the web and found this:

www.telldus.se

Turns out the software for it is open source and easily available for vb.net programming. So I bought it along with a few radio-controlled switches. After writing a little plugin for MC I now finally have remote control for my amps.



The plugin monitors MC's events, triggering when playback changes between playing/paused and stopped.
The plugin allows for control of several devices, and supports different settings for different media types. When starting a movie, MC can now turn on my amps, dim down the lights. Pausing the movie can turn up the lights a little, while stopping turns them back up, and the amp off. Neat.

Haven't bought a dimmer yet so that part of the code isn't tested. On/off and delays are working fine. Interface is a copy of the Telldus plugin for MediaPortal.
If anyone is interested I will upload the plugin to the web.

[rick.ca]

I'm a little disappointed you didn't "discover" X-10 instead of this. 

I'm happy being able to dim all the lights, etc. with my keyboard or remote, but the idea of using MC events as triggers is intriguing. But this thing seems very similar to X-10, so maybe you'll inspire someone to write a plugin for it.

After many years of using X-10 devices, I know the biggest challenge you'll face is the human aspect of its implementation. Having the lights come up when a movie ends is a really cool idea—until you don't want it to happen. That might be as simple as wanting to watch two half-hour tv programs together without the lights coming up when the first one ends. It helps to be able to program any kind of logic you want into the triggers, but it's always challenging to come up with something that always does what you want it to do. I've eventually done away with any automated event that was not completely appropriate 95% of the time. I found my appreciation of the automatic event diminished over time, while the annoyance of an unwanted event remained high or increased. (Try explaining to a new girlfriend why the lights came on at the wrong time.)

But there are so many cool things you could do! Set the lighting according to the genre of the movie. Or modify it with the intensity of the music. Or simulate a power failure when your kid tries to watch an x-rated movie.

[llafriel]

The thing I like about the Tellstick was mainly it's price and simplicity(and the fact that I could get it at my local electronics store.) The x10 was little too costly for just a single switch.
If I'm ever going to do a more complete house automation system then I'm going to look elsewhere. The Tellstick is only one way communication for instance. But for my amps is more than sufficient.
I'm also thinking of writing a small plugin that powercycles my router whenever I loose internetconnection.